The Buck starts here…

Yesterday afternoon some of my mates & I decided to take a break from bathing in the clear blue sea, swinging lazily on hammocks & eating delicious barbecued seafood on the beach. We wanted a bit of action. A bit of physical exertion. Well we certainly got it.

We hired some canoes and set off for the next beach along from ours – around a small rocky headland. Just to give you a sense of perspective this should be a trip that takes about 20 minutes each way, although clearly winds, currents & the threat of giant octopi thrashing at ones boat might alter this slightly. The canoes we were rowing were pretty standard 2 person ones. Thing was, there were 7 of us. So one canoe had to take 3 people. Fine. No problems.

So we head off, make great progress & get to the other beach in about 20 minutes. We “park” our canoes on the sand, & go get some food at what is reputed to be one of the best restaurants on Ko Phangan. It was pretty damn good. We ate, paid, returned to our canoes, hung out on the beach for maybe half an hour, and then prepared for disembarkation back to our beach. On the outward trip I had been shipmates with a girl called Shirley. She decided that she quite fancied swimming part of the return leg. So we got the “extra” person, Caroline, on our boat so that Shirley could jump off & the 2 of us could take the canoe back to its home.

Things started looking dodgy from the off. As I tried to get on the canoe to depart, it flipped. Ok. We were in waist high water so no tragedy. We managed to all board the boat again and set off. We proceeded to the headland. And this is where the trouble really started. 3 people in a 2 person boat means that the boat sits lower in the water. The smallest nudge to one side makes people overcompensate & try to swing to the other side. So the boat rocks from side to side & invariably the canoe is going to capsize. Which of course it did. We manage to flip it back & attempt to reboard the canoe. I think you can probably guess what happened next. Yep, it flipped again. By now I’m really wishing that I was wearing a lifejacket. Hell of a reassurance those babies are. So this is the 4th time we’ve boarded the boat & we manage somehow to stay in it.

New problem emerges. Big waves. Because you can’t be side-on to a wave, we actually needed to row into it, thus heading out to sea. By now I’ve pulled fuck knows how many muscles and am not a happy bunny. Getting back on a boat in choppy water takes a fait bit of energy. Energy I’d have really preferred to conserve for the rest of the arduous rowing we faced ahead. Shirley then decides to go ahead with her planned swim & jumps off the boat. Me & Caroline push on for our home beach. I dont know how long that row took, but it felt like forever. distance is a hard thing to visually calculate in the water. I really didn’t fancy falling in again either. I’m not sure how many times I’d have had the strength to re-board & re-board & re-board. Added to the sheer physical exhaustion, we were also quite worried about Shirley. Remember that thing about distance calculation. Not limited to people in boats. Swimmers understimate how long a swim is going to take too.

After an eternity, we started nearing the shore. & in true poetic style the tune blaring out from a bar we were close to was I’m Gonna Get Thru This by Daniel Bedingfield. How apt. We reached the sand. I fell out of the boat & crawled the last few feet. and this is where I had my Kevin Costner moment. Anybody who’s seen the film Robin Hood: Prince of thieves will remember an incredibly corny moment near the beginning where our Kev, playing our Robin, falls to his knees and scrunches up a bit of sand in his hand. & this is what I did. Dry land (actually wet sand but lets not get hung up on the details) never felt so good. My face must have been an absolute picture because my mates on the other canoes who had arrived ages before us were doing their best not to crack up.

We got the boats back to their owner & a couple of the girls walked down the beach to meet Shirley when she got in. I was quite worried for her. Knowing how hard it had been for us, I imagined she must have had it pretty tough too. After another seeming age, she turned up. Exhausted. Relief doesn’t quite encapsulate what I felt right then. Next move was to the supermarket to buy myself a nice big bottle of scotch, and to the bar to get a bucket of ice and a glass.

Of course everybody else found the whole story pretty funny, which I guess it was. But then, all stories that end well have a humorous side. It’s the other kind that dont always lend themselves to mirth.

So. My advice to you. And to myself. Dont put 3 people in a 2 person boat. Wear a life jacket for peace of mind. And dont drink too much scotch on rocks or you’ll wake up with a headache…

Yesterday evening I left Bangkok with four friends to travel by train down the peninsula that hangs off the bottom of Thailand. We arrived at Surat Thani, a port city, this morning just after dawn, & got a boat from there to the island of Ko Phangan from where I write this entry.

Because we had booked the tickets rather late our seats/bunks on the train were not together, and so we decided after an hour or so to go & sit in the restaurant/bar/disco carriage. We had a few buckets (literally small buckets of the type a kid might make sandcastles with, filled with rum, coke, soda & ice with straws sticking out of it) and ordered a bit of food. This being a “disco” carriage, there was loud music blaring from a ghetto blaster on the bar, & from time to time we would stick one of our own CD’s on. As the evening wore on, a large group of western travellers joined us in the carriage, and before long the party was in full swing, with much joy, merriment & dancing in the aisles. At 11ish we all left the carriage went back to our respective bunks & tried to get some sleep.

What’s wrong with that story? Sounds like a pretty nice evening hey? Well. Firstly it’s all true. So there’s nothing wrong with it in that respect. But’s its not the whole story. While we were happily enjoying ourselves spending what may have seemed to us like relatively small amounts of cash and dancing about having our fun, in the next carriage along row after row of Thai people were watching us. They were sitting in 3rd class seats. 3rd class doesn’t have fans. The seats are smaller and less comfortable. As our party progressed the doors between the carriages were closed. Every so often one of the partygoers would leave the carriage & forget to close the door. A Thai from the 3rd class carriage would dutifully get up & close it for us.

I’m not sure why this whole thing got to me so much. I’ve been in the developing world before. I’ve seen some of the poverty that exists here. It’s not like I’ve never heard of the fact that trains are split into classes. It’s not even as if I haven’t been on these trains myself in the past. But the division on the train last night really did upset me. Every time that door was left open I felt guilty. And the paradox in that is that in an ideal world I’d want that door to be left open.

Last night I felt like I was a member of a species of people I’ve seen all over Thailand: The arrogant westerner. I felt like my money was buying me into some kind of exclusive club. I felt like an accident of birth had given me the opportunity to travel & see the world, while the furthest one poor Thai guy will get is to Surat Thani to work his ass off for peanuts.

I couldn’t sleep for several hours after I left the disco carriage. I needed to somehow address the negativity. In a way I needed to convince myself that I’m not some arrogant, rich western shmuck just out in Southeast Asia to have a good time. And then I began to think about why I am here. To travel, and meet new people & experience new places & cultures & all that, sure. But also to be a teacher. To someow try & make a small contrbution towards making the world less of a place that has a carriage full of westerners dancing, whilst people who would live for a week on what we carelessly spend on another bucket look on. To make it less of a place where the train authorities decide that one way to differentiate between 2nd & 3rd class is to give one lot soap by the sinks, and the others not. How much does a bit of soap cost for crying out loud???

I know that what I’ve just written probably looks naive, idealistic, foolish even. But I truly believe that education is the answer to many of the worlds problems. My fellow teaching trainees are now fully qualified TEFL teachers. (TEFL = Teaching English as as Foreign Language). They have already spead across Asia and the world. One in Laos, one in Taiwan, one in Indonesia, one in Thailand and so on. It is people like them who will unite the train. Or if that is too lofty an ambition, they will at least get the people in 3rd class some soap. It’s really not too much to ask.

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